Chap. III. FLAX-SCRAPING. 6» 
to rain. I have often braved vi^itli impunity the 
heaviest rain, sleeping under no other shelter. 
The plant is called phormium tenaoc by naturalists. 
The general native name for the plant, we were told, 
was korari ; but each sort, and there are ten or twelve, 
has its distinctive name. Any portion of the leaf, 
when gathered, becomes here kie kie, or literally 
"tying stuff." The operation of scraping is called 
haro ; the fibre when prepared muka. 
These natives seemed to have no property beyond 
the mere means of existence ; and their abject state as 
slaves, holding their lives at the mere caprice of the 
natives by some of whom we were accompanied, was 
striking. 
We descended the river in company with the four 
or five canoes, in which they stowed themselves, with 
their women and children, cats, dogs, and pet sucking- 
pigs, who all took their places among the baskets 
of flax and potatoes, and seemed as much at home 
when shooting a ticklish rapid as on shore. One boy 
of twelve years old made himself a canoe of two bun- 
dles of soft bulrushes, called raupo, which he bound 
together with flax, and guided with great dexterity from 
his perch in the middle. 
We halted soon after meeting the salt water, tide 
and wind being against us, and bivouacked on another 
shingly beach. 
There is generally a regular land and sea breeze 
here ; but a gale of wind from the Strait to-day pene- 
trated up the Frith of the Ohiere. 
Our friend Jimmy Jackson, who had followed on 
our track, joined us this evening. He had lost his way 
for two days by taking a wrong direction in the laby- 
rinth which I have above mentioned ; and would have 
passed the mouth of the bay in which we were encamped 
